Is Final Fantasy XIV GM’s Plan For Harassment Backfiring?

It’s very sad that in this modern age of video games that people feel the need to harass other players. Now, jabbing and taunts can be fine to an extent, but some people take it way too far. Such is the case with the popular MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, and specifically on their Korean server. Apparently, a lot of people have been harassing female players, and so to try and stop them, the GMs decided to take drastic action. But some are feeling this is backfiring more than help.

This was brought to attention by Reddit user Shoujiki, who noticed a new piece about Final Fantasy XIV that detailed this. Apparently, the GMs are temporarily banning anyone who harasses another player. But they’re also putting their name on a list and revealing the reason they were banned.

While this might be considered ok to an extent, there’s a catch. These people aren’t just harassing female gamers in-game, they’re harassing them outside of it. So to some, the “shaming” of the people via the list is giving them more reasons to harass the female players as “punishment.”

Image: DualShockers

And this raises the important question: Is this punishment worth it if the harassing just gets worse? In Shoujiki’s mind, the banning is fine, as that’s a good punishment, but the listing of names he equates to “throwing gasoline on a fire.”

Reddit had plenty of opinions on this matter. Some were reasonable, and some were trolling the thread in the worst way. So much so that the Reddit GM for the thread actually locked this thread down because they were seeing it spiral out of control.

What are your thoughts on this matter? Let us know in the comments below.

You may also like

1 comment

Neoyoshi2017-09-30 - 02:13

Public shaming is just never a good idea no matter what the context surrounding it, and this is a clear example of what not to do.

Game accounts can be banned and actions circumvented, but no amount of circumvention can keep bad people from continuing to be bad people. Hopefully the GM’s learned something from this terrible experience.

It’s just too bad there isn’t much they can do about the real-life situations.